Ultimate Fighting Championship

How does the fastest growing sports organization in the world manage over 20 Twitter accounts in different languages and identify key influencers with a 6 million global follower base?

Challenge

Understand their global Twitter fan base to increase engagement. Manage over 20 Twitter accounts in different languages and reach a wider audience.

Solution

Used the Audiense Twitter analytics and management tools to gain an in-depth understanding of their large follower base, identify key influencers to engage with, recognize growth by region, uncover celebrity supporters, and promote regional UFC events to local fans.

Results

Increased engagement with Twitter UFC fans.

Rapid follower growth of all UFC accounts.

Live performance data with the ability to act in real-time.

About The UFC

The fastest growing sports organization in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championship® , or UFC® (@ufc), started in 1993 as a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) organization.

UFC stands as the world’s leading MMA promoter, offering the premier series of MMA sports events that have sold out some of the biggest arenas and stadiums across the globe.

Today, the UFC connects with tens of millions of fans through its website, UFC.com, as well as social media sites Twitter and Facebook. UFC President Dana White is considered one of the most accessible and followed executives in sports, with over two million followers on Twitter.

Their Challenge

With over 6 million followers across 20 Twitter accounts globally, the UFC faced a real challenge. Although the organization had identified Twitter as a hugely important channel, both for interacting and involving UFC fans in the sport they love, they struggled to analyze their follower base in detail and direct any new followers to follow the appropriate regional account for localized news and information.

The organization also lacked the ability to easily identify celebrity followers that could be approached for endorsement requests. As a result, the UFC realized they needed a more robust Twitter analytics and management platform that could provide more granular segmentation and analysis, allow for automation with rules and workflow, and facilitate tailored DM campaigns to local fan groups.

Their Solution

After comparing a number of Twitter analytics and management platforms Audiense was selected as the perfect fit. The UFC used Audiense’s Twitter targeting, analytics, engagement and management tools to segment and understand their community in-depth, measure regional follower growth and identify influential followers and celebrities to engage with.

Audiense’s Rule Builder, Discover Retweeters and DM campaign features were also used to coordinate efforts across all 20 UFC accounts to engage followers at a local level and deliver campaigns to target followers with an interest in regional new and events.

Their Results

Rapid growth of regional UFC Twitter accounts with the use of rules and workflows.

Improved promotion of local events with tailored DM campaigns.

Increased engagement with Twitter UFC fans worldwide.

Live performance data of all 20 Twitter accounts displayed in a single dashboard, with the ability to act in real-time.

Key To Their Success

Detailed Twitter analytics with the functionality to analyze, engage and target existing and potential followers and zoom down to an individual Twitter user.

The ability to discover retweeters and create custom lists and follow-up campaigns.

“Audiense has been a very helpful tool for UFC to identify opportunities to engage with fans and celebrities on Twitter. We love having an immediate touchpoint with our new followers thanking them for choosing to follow us and also direct them to follow the appropriate region account for localized news and information. We have searched high and low for social media tools and no one has been able to come close to what Audiense has been able to provide the UFC, especially as it related to learning more about our influencers and growth by region.”